Jan 12 My Stats

One of the first things that pre-PA students want to know is an accepted students stats. So for all those curious people, here are mine:

B.S. in Biological Sciences at FSU with minors in Chemistry and Psychology

Graduated magna cum laude with my honors medallion and honors in the major

Honors in the major = successfully defended undergraduate thesis project

Honors medallion = an award given to honors students, who finish the honors college requirements

cGPA = 3.72

sGPA = 3.79

GRE = 317 (Verbal 159, Quantitative 158, Written 4)

Hours at application:

PCE as a CNA = 266

Volunteering at a hospital, free clinic, and throughout college = 270ish

Shadowing a PA = 40

Working as a researcher/viviarium manager in a neuroscience lab = almost 2 years

With my stats all out in the open, let’s analyze!

My major is excellent for pre-PA and I personally took a lot of really hard 4000 level bio courses (immunology, neuroscience, prokaryotic biology) mainly because I was interested in them (yes, I am a nerd).

My GPA seems pretty good, but not stellar. However, my last 5 semesters I got straight A’s in order to compensate for one REALLY bad grade my first semester. So… both good and bad parts there.

I think my GRE is average for accepted PA students.

Then there is my hours… now my volunteer and shadowing hours, I think, are pretty good. However, my PCE hours SUCK!!!

With that said, all pre-PA peeps take note! My hours were practically nonexistent, but I was able to compensate for that in other areas of my application and still get multiple acceptances into well-ranked programs. I also want everyone to notice that I did not have a difficult job (like EMT, RN, or PTA) to get those hours. I was and still am working as a CNA at a hospital. Obviously, CNA is not the most glorious medical profession out there, but I promise you that you will learn a lot!

So to sum it up… if you have a sore spot in your application (like PCE hours), then you need to compensate for that in multiple other areas (like GPA, GRE, LORs etc). If you can shadow a PA, then definitely do it! PA schools want to make sure that you understand the PA profession well enough to make a career decision. Finally, you can work as a CNA and get accepted into PA school! I honestly thought that I would never get accepted into PA school with PCE as a CNA, but actually a few of the schools told me that they liked applicants that were CNAs. Dealing with the nitty gritty CNA work in order to get into PA school shows dedication and develops humility.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me. If you have any comments, please leave them below. Hopefully this gave some pre-PA students out there hope because when I applied I didn’t think I would get accepted with these stats. I am so happy that I was wrong!

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Please note that all information provided on this blog consists of my personal opinions and recommendations. None of my opinions or recommendations are affiliated with the program in which I am enrolled.